Russian civil servants' salaries have increased by 3.8 percent this year, despite a freeze on salaries for public officials amid the country's continuing economic downturn, statistics published Wednesday by federal statistics agency Rosstat showed.
Civil servants earned on average 100,100 rubles ($1,500) per month between January and September — an increase of almost 4 percent compared to the same period last year, the statistics showed.
Audit Chamber employees saw their bank accounts grow most — with an almost 40 percent increase in their salaries compared to last year — and earned on average 171,000 rubles ($2,600).
Civil servants in the presidential administration continued to top the salary ranking, despite a 5 percent year-on-year drop, and earned on average 206,500 rubles ($3,130), the statistics showed.
Employees at federal agencies also saw their incomes shrink — salaries at the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations plummeted by 30 percent, the Federal Agency for Special Construction cut salaries by 22 percent and the Federal Medical-Biological Agency spent 20 percent less on paying its employees.
The average monthly salary in Russia in October was 33,240 rubles ($500), a three-percent increase from the same month last year, Rosstat statistics showed. Real wages, however, have fallen by around 11 percent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year signed a decree slashing his own salary, that of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and several other top government officials by 10 percent, in a symbolic measure amid a struggling economy hit by low oil prices and Western sanctions.
Putin late last year also signed a decree ordering officials' salaries not to be adjusted for inflation in 2015.The State Duma earlier this month passed a bill extending the freeze on civil servants' salaries until January 2017.
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